Distributor Awards: Best Initiative - Ingram Micro

Ingram Micro’s $6 million investment in a datacentre has been a big success, so much so that the distributor picked up this year’s award for Best Distributor Initiative for the development.

The Partner Technology Centre is a purpose-built facility aimed at giving resellers a new way to demonstrate solutions to customers. It features technology from 12 Ingram vendor partners including Avocent, APC, Brocade, Cisco, EMC, Fortinet, HP, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Symantec and VMware. Ingram Micro Enterprise Technology Group general manager, David Lenz, said the resulting benefits to partners from the centre has made the investment more than worthwhile.

“Any reseller that’s been able to get their customer into this centre has found their close rates are very high, and a lot of it is because of that final proof of concept for that customer before they make their final decision,” he said.

The centre has been so successful that Ingram Micro is repeating the process in Victoria. To accompany its move to new offices in Abbortsford, Melbourne, Ingram is building a similar Partner Technology Centre there. It’s not quite ready yet – it’s due to go live early next year – but Lenz fully expects it to prove equally popular with partners.

But that’s not the only expansion the distributor is looking at for the initiative.

“We’re going to launch an online booking system, and that online booking system will allow resellers to book the centre online,” Lenz said. “That’s a facility we believe is an enhancement, making it simpler for us and partners to see its availability, and then be able to leverage it even more effectively.

“That booking system will give us a lot more info around participation rates, it will give us a lot more detail around being able to understand specifically what the customer requirements are, and what the reseller requirements are, so we can work very closely with that reseller to deliver the right environment for that customer needed.”

The Abbortsford offices and facility are housed within a four Green Star-rated building. It’s larger than the previous Burwood location, will hold around 80 staff, and will see Ingram’s staff housed under the same roof as employees from the Ingram Vantex acquisition. “From our point of view we believe the investment for us is quite a strategic investment with the changes we’ve been making. The online system there will also be a section that will outline what they can use and demonstrate in the centre,” Lenz said.

“It’s very exciting times for us, and we look forward to opening up the Melbourne centre.” 

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